Vincent R. Impellitteri

Vincent Richard Impellitteri (4 February 1900-29 January 1987) was Mayor of New York City from 14 November 1950 to 31 December 1953, succeeding William O'Dwyer and preceding Robert F. Wagner Jr..

Biography
Vincenzo Impellitteri was born in Isnello, Sicily in 1900, and he moved to the United States as an infant in 1901, spending most of his youth in Ansonia, Connecticut. He served in the US Navy during World War I before becoming a US citizen in 1922, and he served as an Assistant District Attorney from 1929 to 1938. Impellitteri was a close associate of mobster Tommy Lucchese, but he failed to rise through the city Democratic Party's ranks due to his repeated snubbing of Tammany Hall ally Frank Costello, another Mafia boss. In 1945, he was elected as President of the City Council on the Tammany Hall slate as the Democratic and American Labor Party nominee, but he was re-elected as a Democrat alone in 1949. In 1950, following Mayor William O'Dwyer's resignation over a police corruption scandal, Impellitteri was appointed as his successor, and he became an opponent of Tammany Hall. In the 1950 special election, he won re-election as the "Experience Party" candidate, claiming to be "unbought and unbossed". His election was a populist uprising against the political system, becoming the first third-party candidate to be elected Mayor of New York City since 1898. He fired corrupt policemen and anyone associated with O'Dwyer, and he tried to rein in the budget, raising the bus and subway fees, establishing parking meters on city streets, and increasing the sales tax. In 1953, he was defeated in the Democratic mayoral primary by Robert F. Wagner Jr., and Wagner appointed Impellitteri a judge of the criminal court. Impellitteri retired in 1965, and he died in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1987.